I’ve been doing some programming recently which has reminded me how black or white computer code is. When it’s correctly written it always works. If it’s just one character off it will (maddeningly) entirely fail to run. And yes, I’ve been reminded of the latter this week!
When I became a Christian I joined a Christian tradition with black or white at its core:
- There are two eternal destinies: heaven (perfect happiness) or hell (unending conscious pain)
- Heaven is for perfect (100% sinless) people only
- Either God’s spirit indwells you or you aren’t a Christian at all
There’s a stark elegance about black and white on a piano. And as I mentioned, I know from (frustrating) experience that computer code is black and white.
Yet the more I thought about *people* the less it made sense to try to fit them into the black or white framework of the theology I’d been taught. How could it be possible that a simplistic divide of all humanity into perfect happiness or eternal torment is appropriate given the diverse complex spectrum across which human behavior (and motivation) lies?
And the black and white designation of, you either have God’s Spirit or you don’t, didn’t seem to fit the character and behavior I saw from people supposedly with or without. I saw no consistent pattern of people I was told had God’s Spirit behaving better than those I was told did not have it.
These observations helped break my theology. I’m glad, because although I was taught grace manifests through the black or white, it seems to me that (in that system) it’s only for the people who fall in the‘white’ category. I’d rather live in a world where simplistic dichotomies exist only inside machines and in stylized art, because that means there’s hope for everyone. Not just those on the right side of the dividing line.
Here here! Because if heaven is only for 100% sinless people, none of us would make it there. I really resonate with the old phrase, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Identifying as Christian doesn’t change our status; it’s an opportunity to change our lives. That’s all.
Helen,
“You have been doing some programming” indeed and you have done a beautiful job on this site!
To me the whole “black and white” thing is like stereotyping. It is a shorthand for categorizing people. Once we categorize them, we don;t have to worry about nuances or relationships.
Thanks Glenn!
I would say anything that gets in the way of relationship is a bad thing, whether it’s stereotyping or something else.
Helen,
Is that totally true about the programming? I know for instance when you get into higher level maths, things become a lot more fuzzy than they do at the lower levels. Could that be true about programming as well?
Benjamin can you give me an example of fuzzy higher level math, so I know what you mean? It seems to me that pure math loses its numbers but tends to remain rigorous – you have to prove everything.
It’s interesting you bring up math because pure math is another example of something that is ideal and perfect and removed from the real world I live in – just like some of the Christian theology of the circles I used to move in.
Anyway, responding to your comment – yes, in a sense yes you could make programming more fuzzy at a ‘higher level’ because you could program a programming language with the ability to correct for mistakes based on algorithms. But there would still be no flexibility in the syntax of the programming code used to create the fuzzy higher level programming language.